


Indelible

by lemonsharks



Series: Every Terrible, Necessary Choice [8]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Almost Kiss, F/F, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining, pre-duel, slightly sad fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 20:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4639947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonsharks/pseuds/lemonsharks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The best way to stop a rumor was still by making sure it never got started in the first place. And until they determined what to <i>do </i>about Josephine's betrothal, they had no space for rumors.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indelible

**Author's Note:**

> Fictional kiss things that end me #8 - when they lean forward a fraction as if to kiss the other person, then realize they shouldn’t and pull back to stop themselves

The scent of Josephine’s ink, metallic and tannic, drifted up on a late-autumn breeze, joining laughter and the muffled notes of a song.

She had one callus on the middle finger of her writing hand, though she held her pen like a finch might hold a thorn. Cleverly, thoughtfully. Tendrils of her hair had come loose in the afternoon warmth, and Mercy fought to keep her hands folded in her lap. She itched to pull the braids down, free of their pins.

They had appearances to maintain, and while the gazebo offered them _some_ privacy, the best way to stop a rumor was still by making sure it never got started in the first place. And until they determined what to _do_ about her betrothal, they had no space for rumors. But oh, Maker, did Josephine even know she chewed on the corner of her mouth while she worked through a difficult problem?

She couldn’t, because she would never lay down the warm curl between Mercy’s ribs if she if she _knew_. She wasn’t _cruel_.

Josephine had spoken, and now she set her pen back in its stand and beckoned for an answer.

“—Mm?” Mercy tilted her head to one side, brows raised and fingers curled in loose fists around the fabric of her trousers.

They had spread across the scrubbed wooden floor, cushions and calendars arranged around them, paperwork held down with smooth stones borrowed from the garden.

“I said, ‘Are you certain you will be staying in Skyhold for the _entire_ month?’”

“That’s how long the Iron Bull said it would take for his ankle to stop being made of jellied eel,” she replied. “And I’m not setting foot into the Hissing Wastes without him. Val Royeaux is a possibility, though. Otherwise we’re just waiting on bridges, and the one in the Emprise won’t be finished for weeks yet.”

“Then I do not have to explain what your staying in one place for a time means to the Inquisition—in fact, there are several fetes in Val Royeaux this time of year that—what?”

“Did you know I would listen to you read the _Genealogy of House Aeducan_ , just to hear your voice?”

 _Josephine’s face must be_ burning _, to raise a blush like that,_ Mercy thought.

The bridge of her nose and shells of her ears had gone pink. She took a pinch of drying sand between her long fingers and sprinkled it over what she had just written, watching as the grains soaked up the last drops of liquid, leaving behind a script fine as butterflies’ legs.

Mercy shifted closer. A cross-breeze raised goose flesh on her arms and the back of her neck, or perhaps it was just being _so_ close and yet not allowed to _touch_.

“What you do cannot only be closing rifts and slaying demons, my lady,” Josephine said.

She raised her eyes from her work and tilted her head, and there was a seriousness about her today. A weight. An army of demons gathered in the west, against which the Empress offered no aid, and life-saving antics or no Mercy had very nearly got them all _expelled_ from the Winter Palace last year. They had men and arms, but the lady with the trebuchets was not responding to their letters and might not take a visit well, and _what she would give_ , what she would give to hold Josephine close and kiss her until she believed they’d be all right.

Mercy leaned in; Josephine closed her eyes, and drew a short breath.

For a moment she sat there, still and aching-stiff, dry-lipped, and then she pulled away with a sigh.

They might be seen.

There was a time she wouldn’t have cared, and all she had to show for it was the disappointed little noise Josephine made in the back of her throat.

“All right,” she said, straightening the cushion behind her. She needed to move, to do _something_ with her hands. “Who are we inviting to overwinter with us here, which of them might actually take us up on it, and how dreadfully under-prepared are we for the visits?”

“Oh, come now," Josephine replied, and cleared her throat to mask the shaking in her voice. "It is not as bad as that.”


End file.
